Behind the design: kawaii

Meet Åsa, one of our in-house designers here at Rex London. Åsa is originally from Sweden, drinks a ridiculous amount of coffee and loves doodling and making characters. She is the designer behind the Elvis the Elephant and Monsters of the World ranges, plus our Charlie the Sausage Dog pull toy, Ella the Hedgehog pull toy, and Fruit Purses. We caught up with her to talk about her incredibly popular Happy Cloud, Miko the Panda, Cookie the Cat and Bonnie the Bunny collections, which all embody the kawaii style. 

Åsa Wikman with Ella the Hedgehog, Elvis the Elephant, and Charlie the Sausage Dog wooden pull toys, £9.95 each

Many of your designs are all in a kawaii style. What exactly is kawaii? 

Oh, that is a very good question! I think that it is a style and culture that originated from Japan and that it celebrates cuteness but I am honestly not sure and might have that all wrong [editor’s note: this is correct!]. I first came in contact with the kawaii style when I was a kid and I loved all the super cute little characters. They were very hard to come by in the north of Sweden where I grew up, so anything with a kawaii print was treated as a treasure.

Items from the cute Happy Cloud collection.

How did you go about creating Bonnie the Bunny, Cookie the Cat and Miko the Panda?

The Bonnie, Miko and Cookie ranges were actually made by coincidence. I was asked to design some baby socks and I had so much fun and couldn’t stop coming up with more designs and ideas - in the pile was a cat, a panda and a bear. The buying team picked up on them and thought that they could look great on more products than just socks, so that was how that collection came about. I had to adjust the shapes a little bit from being used on socks and Bonnie was added but that was it. 

Early sketches and plans for the baby socks. 

Why do you think kawaii style is so appealing?

I think why I like the kawaii style is that it is not trendy. It is very graphic, clean and simple and that makes them quite timeless. I have to confess that I use the Hello Pineapple and Hello Strawberry vinyl purses - they make me happy and they are sold at a very good price and I think they can appeal to young children just as much as 42 year old ones like me :)

Fruit purses, along with some early sketches. 

What comes first, the product or the design? What’s your design process?

For me the process varies. For the fruit purses I had the idea in my head and knew exactly what I wanted them to look like, so I sketched them up and presented them to the buying team to see if they thought it would be a product suitable for Rex London and if they thought it is something we should develop or not. Luckily, they liked my idea and I could go on and develop them. Other times we have a product range that we want to make and develop and we start from that end and then start working on what designs we think will work best for that product. So it’s a mix.

Children’s bamboo tableware sets, £15.95 each

What your favourite Rex London kawaii product? 

That is really, really hard! The range has exploded and there are so many products and it’s very hard to choose. I love the Happy Cloud children's umbrella and wish we had it in adult size. 

Åsa with the Happy Cloud and Bonnie the Bunny children’s umbrellas, £8.95 each.

The fruit purses are still a favourite of mine but I also really like the children’s bamboo tableware sets with Bonnie the Bunny, Cookie the Cat and Miko the Panda. I also really like the bamboo travel mugs - they are great for my coffee addiction and a great product to use to cut down on plastic and paper waste.

Products shown, left to right:
Bonnie the Bunny bamboo travel mug, £9.95
Cookie the Cat bamboo travel mug, £9.95
Miko the Panda bamboo travel mug, £9.95

Thank you so much to Åsa for sharing her love of kawaii with us!